Early History of Lake Maxinkuckee - The First White Settlers  

At the end of 1838 the idians had all gone or been driven away west of the Mississippi river, the lands which had been held by them by treaty from the Government had been reconveyed to the Governemtn and had been made subject to entry by the white people.

Considerable portion of the lands surrounding the lake had never benn in possession of the Indians and was was open to entry about 1834-5, and most of it had been entered by spec ulators and others who had decided to make this part of the country their future home.

The first settlers about the lake came in 1836. Several heads of families came in 1835 and entered lands and early in the following spring built log cabins, cleared off little patches of ground, planted corn, potatoes, etc., and early in the summer returned to bring their families and take up their permanent residences here. They came in a carvan from Southern Indiana in wagons drawn by ox teams, on horseback and on foot. They started on their long and tiresome journey on the 12th of July, and arrived at the east of the lake July 26, 1836, just six days after the county and county seat had been organized, whic occured July 20, 1836. At that time there were six hundred white people in the county and about fifteen hundred Pottawattomie Indians. The household goods of the members of the carvan were carefully packed away in the wagons, leaving room for the women and children and the supply of eatables prepared for the journey. The wagons were covered with sheeting for protection against rain and the hot rays of the sun. FOurteen days were occupied in making the trip.

The roads most of the distance were through swamps and over log bridges, and much of the way was but little better than Indiana trails. From Indianapolis the Michigan road was follwed. The lands for this road had been secured from the Indians for the purpose of making a great thoroughfare for their benefit from lake Micihgan to the Ohio river. It ran through contiguos sections of land, the income of which was approriated to building he road from the mouth of Trail creek, at Michigan City, to Madison, Indiana. At that time it had only just been opened trough this part of the state, and that only to such an extent as to make it passable by cutting down the trees and bushes along the line and bridging over the worst place, with brush and poles and logs.

The country through which the road ran at that time was mostly thick timbered lands, and all along was an abundance of wild game and fruits of all kinds, which the hunters of the little band brought into camp. The lack of suitab;e water to drink was the most serious diffic ulty they had to overcome. There were seldom any springs along the way, and the water for drinking and cooking purposes was mostly from stagnant ponds and small streams which were not much better. Every night on the way they camped wherever night overtook them, slept in the wagons and under the trees, the cattle and horses browsing about the camp and testing from the day's toil as best they could. The mosquitos and flies wre a terrible pest much more so than people now-a-day's can imagine.

It was late in the afternoon of July 26, 1836, when the tired and wornout carvan obtained first sight of the ever beutif ul Maxinkuckee Lake. The glorius sun was just making a golden set, "and by the track of his fiery car gave token of a goodly day tommorrow". It was indeed, as our own "Hoosier Poet" has so beautifully said, "A picture that no painter had the coloring to mock". A sunset on Maxinkuckee is always beautiful, and no matter how often seen never loses its charm to the beholder. None of them had ever seen a lake before, and the beauty of the scene, the rippling water, the rays of the golden sunset, and the shore lines, with their "etchings of forest and prairie", left a picture on their memory that lasted during life.

The final stop was made just east of the lake, not far from the residence of the late David R. Voreis. It was twilight then. A signal of their arrival in the neighborhood had been agreed upon before they started, and as the ox teams were halted at the end of the journey, a long, loud blast was given on a conch shell, which resounded and echoed and re-echoed through the trees and over the hills, for miles in every direction. The night birds began to carol their sweetest melodies and sing their glad songs of welcome. ANd then the weary travellers listened eagerly for the response. It soon came from the residence of Vincent Brownlee, a short distance farther away. The echoes of that response still rings loaud and clear in the ears of all still living who heard it. It was in one sense a most joyf ul occasion. The women who had borne the burden and heat of the long and wearisome days and were eill-nigh exhausted, cried for joy, and even the salwart men of the party let fall a silent tear that the hardships of the journey to the new country were at5 an end. Less than half a dozen who came at that time are still living, and the writer knows of none, except himself, who was then an infant, who still linger about the lake. ALl the others are living elsewhere, of "have gone to join that unnumerablew caravan that moves to that mysterious realm from which no traveler ever returns".

At that time there was no house about the lake except the log cabin of Nees-wau-gee heretofore referred to.

The only one of the caravan who settled on the lake was Eleazer Thoompson, who built a log cabin a year or two later where the residence of Mrs. H. H. Culver is now located on the northeast shore. The old cabin still stands just north of the Culver residence, but has been remodeled, losing thereby some of its primitive beauty. Mr. Thompson was, therefore, the first white settler to take up his permenant residence on the banks of the lake. He died a few years later, and the property was changed hands many times since then.

The elder Adam Mow lived there in the early forties, rearing a large family of boys and girls who are well remembered by the surviviors of that early period in the history of the lake.

About that time there also settled on that side of the lake, Samuel Jones, Samuel Peeples and Debolt Klein.

On the lake where the town of Culver now stands lived Ephraim Moor, James Lyon, Minard Taplin, Bayless L. Dickson, Dr. L. M. Bowles, and possibly one or two others whose names are not now recalled.

Among the first fishermen from a distance after summer resorters began to come to the lake about 1866, was R. J. Bright (better known as Dick Bright), then proprietor of the Indianapolis Sentinel, and later for many years Sergeant-at-Arms of the United States Senate, who built a boathouse at Maxinkuckee Landing in which he kept the boat and fishing tackle. J. H. Vajen, also of Indianapolis was among the first to discover the beauties of the lake. Peter Spangler kept the only hotel, on Nees-wau-gee Hill, and had some heavy plank fishing boats, the only boats about the lake at that time.